That Time We Acted Like We Were Wild, Young and Free!

It’s not often that we have a night away from the kids.

No wait, that’s a big fat lie. We get the night off every couple of Thursdays or so. BUT it’s not often that we are able to pack our bags and treat ourselves to a night away. This is how this magical unicorn of an event managed to happen:

The kids usually go away with Seth’s parents to Houw Hoek Inn for one night every school holiday. The kids decided that one night was too short so they politely asked (code for begged and pleaded consistently for 10 hours straight until even the dogs ears started to bleed) if they could please stay for 2 nights in a row. In the effort to combat this kind of annoying behaviour of whining to get their way, Seth’s parents said yes and whisked them away for two nights instead of one. Uh… Wait…

Anyway.

Who am I to pass up two nights without my children? I mean I love them obviously, but give me a night off any day.

Since it was recently our 9 year wedding anniversary and it happened to be a Friday night that the kids would be away, we treated ourselves to one night at the Spier hotel.  Best decision ever.  We briefly considered fetching the kids to join us on the Saturday and then staying there till the Sunday with them, so we called in to Spier to see what the cost would be (the website didn’t really cover it properly – it said the kids could sleep for free, but where exactly?).  After coming to our senses and not particularly wanting to ruin the experience by adding the children into the mix, we tried to just book over the phone because we were already talking to them.  Guys, it was R400 more expensive to book on the phone than it was to do it via the internet.  Lesson learned – make sure your scout out your options!

So we were booking a night away and calling in to book was R400 more expensive than booking online ?? Always good to double check!

— Cindy (@CindyAlfino) April 2, 2016

It felt like I was packing for my honeymoon.  Just something in knowing I was about to get a full nights sleep and be able to do whatever the heck I felt like whenever the heck I felt like it was simply magical.

We arrived at Spier around 4pm and while we were waiting to check in we were offered a glass of wine – getting the party started early. After booking into our room and checking out all that it had to offer, we caught the little golf cart taxi (that will literally pick you up at your room, a mere 2 minutes walk away from the restaurant and take you there) to the wine tasting on the other side of the farm.  The kitchen had just closed as we arrived, but we were still able to do the chocolate and wine pairing.

Our guide gave us a walk through on what we should do – sniff the wine, sniff the chocolate, sniff the wine again – notice the difference. Now do the same with tasting, first wine then chocolate and then wine and notice the difference.  He was really good, and so was the wine, but we had the most fun in trying to come up with obscure ways to describe what we were tasting.

We even had our fancy wine tasting faces at the ready…

Seth, “Mmmm yes, this smells like an old Grannies underwear drawer with floral linoleum stick to the bottom.” – Me, “Yes – nailed it, but add a pillow full of pot pourri in the corner.”

Me, *SNIFF*, *exhale*, *SNIFF*, “I’m getting a distinct smell of my own snot!”

Seth, “Ah, I’m not sure but I am getting a whiff of grapes.  They might be fermented. Possibly red in colour.”

I’d love to hear your best wine description if you have one?

By then we were starving. We had once been to the hotel restaurant with the kids for dinner, so we tried out Eight – the only other restaurant on the farm.  They open for supper at 6.30pm and only serve food grown on the property and harvested that day. So every menu every day is brand new and thought out by the chef that afternoon.  It’s a sharing sort of vibe, so you order a couple of things and then share them with the table. We had the steak, gnocchi, veg and uh, something else that I can’t remember.

Delish.

After that, we went back to the room and had a full, delicious nights sleep. The next morning, we made our way down to the hotel restaurant for a full breakfast.  Literally any breakfast food you could think of was there (and included in the accommodation fee). Yum yum.

Then it was time to hop onto the bikes that are available for guests to use.  Seth had wanted to do it when we went wine tasting but considering that the last time I’d been on a bike was 15 years ago, I didn’t really want to spend the rest of my weekend in hospital. So after hiding around the corner and getting on a bike that was much to tall for my short little legs, we used the bikes to go to the other end of the farm, past Eight, the wine tasting and the market all the way to the Eagle Encounters.

I only fell off, like twice, which is a darn sight better than I expected. With no sympathy from Seth who wanted to go and freaking drive over steep bridges and mount pavements and who even knows what else?!

On the way back we stopped at the Hoghouse Bakery, mostly because it was the only place we hadn’t visited and also because bakery! If I could have stolen decor from anywhere and put it into my house, it would be from here.  I’d probably also steal the baker so they could keep up the divine goodies coming my way.

Unfortunately one of the treats got murdered along the way as we had to transport it via bike and well, it just didn’t survive the journey.

Then we had to say our very sad goodbyes so that we could go and fetch our kids (who I did actually miss when I saw them and remembered that I had children).  I thoroughly enjoyed our stay there and I’m so glad that we were able to treat ourselves for our anniversary.

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Other places that we have visited around the Western Cape of South Africa:

• Paternoster – Holiday vacation with the whole family – 11 people in one house, fun fun.
• Swellendam – This was such a great place, need to go back in Summer ?
• McGregor –  If I could move anywhere, this would be it!!
• Paternoster – At Gelukkie, a two night getaway without our kids
• Stellenbosch – I love it there!!
• Houw Hoek Inn – I’ve lost count of the amount of times we’ve been there, in fact the kids go there for a night every holiday (with their Grandparents)! Another time we were there.
• Hermanus – Also a regular holiday spot.
• Grabouw – If you’re going there you need to stay at the Old Mac Daddy
• We also went to Ceres and that was amazing – one of my most memorable holidays.